There may be "Cub" in Cuban, but no longer "Cubs" in Cuban

Seems Mark Cuban's chances of buying the Cubs just hit nil...Busted. This from the "Big League Stew" blog at Yahoo Sports:

Last week, it appeared that Mark Cuban's greatest current challenge was going to be convincing baseball's owners to let him buy the Cubs.

Today that seems like the least of his problems because news just broke that Cuban has been charged with insider trading by possibly the only group with a lower sense of humor than MLB's braintrust — the SEC.

From WSJ.com:

"The Securities and Exchange Commission filed insider trading charges against Mark Cuban, the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks, for allegedly dumping shares in Mamma.com upon learning it was raising money in a private offering.

"The SEC alleges in a civil action that Mr. Cuban sold his entire 6% ownership stake on June 28, 2004, after learning that Mamma.com was raising money through a private investment in a public entity, or PIPE. The next day, on June 29, the company announced the PIPE financing and shares of the company dropped by more than 10%. By selling his stake, the SEC alleges, Mr. Cuban avoided more than $750,000 in losses."

It's obviously still too early to tell how this will ultimately impact Cuban's bid for the Cubs or even his possible interest in acquiring Stephon Marbury for his Mavericks. Still, it's hard to believe that someone facing such serious charges and possible jail time (Hi Martha!) would be able to pull together a $1.3 billion bid for the Cubs and Wrigley Field. Because Sam Zell is now saying he'd like to have the Cubs sold by year's end, this could very well be the final knockout blow for all of our Cuban-with-the-Cubs dreams.

Bogus, I really wanted to see Cuban as Cubs owner.

Edit: For those wondering, the mamma.com site has absolutely nothing to do with MMA. It's actually a search engine. It billed itself as "the mother of all search engines".

iwannabesedated

11/17/08 3:13:36PM

I wish he'd buy the Pirates,Hes from Pittsburgh and loves baseball.It just sucks the current owners are greedy and wont sell.Cuban would actually care about the team and winning and not just how fat he could make his wallet like the current turds that own the mean.